🔗 Share this article

Portugal and Spain are once more recovering from widespread inundation in the wake of Storm Claudia unleashed torrential downpours and strong winds over the past seven days.

Claudia's Formation and Trajectory

This meteorological event formed from an area of low pressure that had previously caused unseasonably early chilly and snowy weather through the eastern regions of Canada and the American north-east at the start of November.

This storm tracked eastwards across the Atlantic during the second weekend of November before slowing and stalling to the north-west of the Iberian peninsula, caught in the trough of an progressively more wavy jet stream.

Impact on Spain and Portugal

The northwestern Spanish region of Galicia was hit first, with three to six inches of rain pouring down along its Atlantic coast in just 24 hours up to Wednesday night as a sluggish front of rain crawled across the western areas of the peninsula.

Further showers and thunderstorms on Thursday brought flooding to areas in Portugal where an elderly couple perished in the city of Lisbon after floodwaters from the swollen Tagus flooded their dwelling as they rested.

Stormy conditions persisted into the weekend, with a violent whirlwind tearing through a camping ground and a nearby hotel in the town of Albufeira in the Algarve region on the weekend's Saturday, fatally injuring an British woman aged 85 and harming 28 people.

Extended Consequences across Europe

The storm produced more extensive impacts across Europe's western part. By pulling tropical air from the subtropics, the system assisted in raising temperatures in southwestern France to nearly 30 degrees Celsius, the state's maximum ever autumn temperature.

By the following Friday, this tropical air mass collided with a cold air mass across the northern areas of the continent, creating a rainfall belt extending from Ireland's west to Russia.

In the United Kingdom, this stationary front of rain brought record-breaking rain accumulations, causing major inundations in the principality of Wales.

As this weather phenomenon loses strength early this week, the cold air mass will move towards the south, delivering to Europe its premier experience of the winter season.

Parallel Events in California

The US state of California underwent a plume of tropical moisture recently, bringing intense precipitation and high-velocity gusts that led to rapid flooding and landslides in regions scarred by blazes previously in the year.

Over two inches of rain poured down in California's southern part on the week's end, with a additional two inches widely across the state on Saturday.

In excess of 100 millimetres of rain accumulated over coastal parts of the state's south in all, reaching a full 200 millimetres in locations at higher elevations.

Such a weather system is a plume of warm, moist air stemming from the equatorial or near-equatorial zones.

Regions previously burned including the Pacific Palisades area and the town of Altadena endured the most intense the sudden floods and earth movements, forcing residents to flee.

In other parts of the state, a 71-year-old man lost his life after his automobile was swept off a inundated overpass, and a young girl aged seven and her parent were dragged into the ocean by big swells on the the state's central shoreline.